Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large. The Euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true. If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.” Another MEP compared this directive to the now-scrapped “bendy banana law,” a 2008 EU ruling that banned bendy bananas; another directive outlawed curved cucumbers.

A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control. Now the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) directive has been turned into an EU directive, that producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the directive.